


Defining Points

by Avenging_Archer (Nieriel_Raina)



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M, Gen, Mild Language, Mild Sexual Content, Violence
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-14
Updated: 2015-03-01
Packaged: 2017-12-08 21:39:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 23,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/766305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nieriel_Raina/pseuds/Avenging_Archer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha had no idea that such a coincidental meeting would change her life so dramatically. He spared her life, giving her a second chance to find purpose and a way to balance her ledger. Their friendship? She didn't over analyze it. It didn't need defining. It was hers. Hers and his. That was all that mattered. Until he was compromised and she came face to face with Loki and discovered herself unwittingly compromised as well. </p><p>The back story behind the friendship of Black Widow and Hawkeye. </p><p>Some violence as per fitting a story about spies and assassins, profanity suited to an ex-military Army Ranger, some sexual situations and innuendo (nothing graphic)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> **Author’s** **Note** : This story started as a simple vignette to explain the bond between Clint and Natasha as we see it during The Avengers, especially that final scene during Shawarma. But as I started to write a simple story that explained the relationship, I realized it wasn’t so simple and that what I was writing would just be another shallow, short tale, easily overlooked and quickly forgotten. How could I treat such a complicated and beautiful relationship so lightly? Very simply, I could not. I hope it’s a tale worth reading. It’s certainly been a tale worth writing. 
> 
> Many thanks to Alpha Flyer for her brilliant beta help. Without her, this story would be far less readable. Her knowledge has been an invaluable resource.

**Summary:** Natasha had no idea that such a coincidental meeting would change her life so dramatically. He spared her life, giving her a second chance to find purpose and a way to balance her ledger. Their friendship? She did not over analyze it. It did not need defining. It was hers. Hers and his. That was all that mattered. Until he was compromised and she came face to face with Loki and discovered herself unwittingly compromised as well. Black Widow/Hawkeye. Movieverse with a touch of comic canon per author's prerogative.

**Author's Note:** This story kind of started as a simple vignette to explain the bond between Clint and Natasha as we see it during The Avengers, especially that final scene during Shawarma. But as I started to write a simple story that explained the relationship, I realized it was not so simple and that what I was writing would just be another shallow, short tale, easily overlooked and quickly forgotten. How could I treat such a complicated and beautiful relationship so lightly? Very simply, I cannot. I hope it's a tale worth reading. It's certainly been a tale worth writing.

Many thanks to Alpha Flyer for her brilliant beta help on the first few chapters. Her knowledge was an invaluable resource.

**Defining Points**

**By Avenging Archer**

**Prologue**

**May 2012**

**New York**

**Shawarma**

"So, when did you and Barton first meet?"

Natasha looked up, surprised that someone had broken the heavy silence that had accompanied most of their meal in the small café. Then she blinked as she realized the inquiry was directed at her.

It was an innocent enough question, especially coming from Steve Rogers, who asked out of curiosity, and not out of provocation as Stark would.

And yet, it was not.

Natasha could feel _his_ eyes on her again.

Clint had watched her frequently during their meal, but whenever she looked back, he would only hold her gaze for a moment before looking away. She stared at him each time, trying to reassure herself that he was himself again, that Loki's hold was truly broken and that aside from a few survivable injuries, he was going to be okay.

But he would not look at her beyond a quick, curious glance, so she had dropped her eyes back to her food after a minute of studying him.

It was rude, she knew, the way they were watching each other while not watching each other and ignoring everyone else at the table, but she could not bring herself to care.

She was very aware of his foot propped up on her chair; he had hurt his leg at some point during the fight. She had seen the limp, though the others had not. His gaze burned into her as it always did, but she did not turn to look at him this time.

Instead, she considered Steve's question.

She remembered that day well. It was, in fact, a day Natasha would never forget. It was a defining point in her life (she would never admit that to anyone, least of all _him_ , though he probably knew it), and while she could not honestly say _he_ was the reason everything changed (because it had started before she ran into him…literally), everything that came after had a lot to do with _him_.

It was a day she remembered fondly, as evident by the slight tilt of her lips. But it was personal, complicated, twined too intimately with who she had been in that other life. Those were things she did not discuss, not even with those closest to her (she could count them on one hand), except _him_ , and even then only rarely. Her almost smile slipped into a frown. At the moment, she could feel the awkwardness between them. It had been there since he had awakened from Loki's spell.

Steve's question made it seem even more awkward — until Clint bumped her with his foot, and she glanced up to see him look pointedly at Steve, who raised his brows and made her realize that the Captain would think she was ignoring his question.

Clint could just as easily have answered it himself, but he would not. It had not been addressed to him. And now, since she had hesitated answering, she had the complete attention of the others at the table as well. They all looked at her expectantly. Why did she have that chilling feeling that she had become a part of a predominantly male team that would gossip and stick their noses into her life worse than Maria Hill?

She took another bite, chewed slowly, then swallowed before answering. "We met _briefly_ seven years ago. About a year later we met again, when Clint recruited me and helped me defect. It was almost a year later that we were assigned our first mission together."

She carefully did not look at any of them as she said the words, keeping her eyes on her food, but she could feel _his_ eyes on her again, his amusement at her veiled answer. It was the truth, if the bare bones of the facts. She tossed him a meaningful glance to keep his mouth shut. His eyes crinkled ever so slightly at the corners with his hidden laughter, and her heart lightened to see it. The hell Loki had put him through had not damaged him as severely as she had feared if he could laugh. She knew there was still a lot of guilt and repercussions to be worked through, but she could see her Clint there, lurking behind the shadow of fatigue and guilt. He acknowledged her silent demand to keep his mouth shut with a nearly imperceptible nod.

"So five years working together." Steve looked as if he had figured out something important. "That explains it then."

The others nodded, each of the men staring at her with a knowing expression on their faces that made her want to run. Except _him._

Clint looked smug, even though he was looking down at his food, as if contemplating whether to eat any more. He had only been picking at it for most of the meal. She ignored the others and moved her hand from her thigh to flick his leg. When he moved only his eyes to gaze at her from under his lashes with what she had coined as his "puppy dog expression", she stared pointedly at his food then back at him. He sighed, dropped his gaze and took another bite, chewing slowly.

The others were watching them and smiling and making rather wrong conclusions as people always did. It rather unnerved her, the intensity with which these men did so. Were they really that curious about her and Clint and how long they had known each other? She supposed it was only natural since she had exposed how much Clint meant to her while he was under Loki's spell. It had been careless of her to expose that weakness. Loki had used that connection to the point of compromising her. Or rather, making her aware of just how compromised she was.

She swallowed down the rising emotions within her and focused on only what they wanted to know. "A lot can happen in five years," she said without expounding. Let them think what they would. Most of SHIELD assumed the two of them were fucking each other. It did not matter if those assumptions were false. Denying it would not change what people thought, and her new team was already thinking it as well.

Clint made a sound, then coughed a bit, but did not add anything. He sipped his drink and kept his eyes deliberately on his food. He was trying not to laugh. She almost smacked him, but settled for shifting her foot against his on the floor and pressing her heel down on his toes. He winced and stuffed another bite into his mouth. She removed her foot.

Thor tilted his head, then nodded. "That is very true. You two have…an affinity for each other. It is like you can read each other's minds. You speak your own language without words. You do so even now. Throughout the meal, you have said not two words to each other, and yet you have spoken volumes with your body language."

Steve nodded in agreement with Thor's wordy statement of the obvious. Bruce's eye brows raised as if just considering it. Tony rolled his eyes. If it had felt awkward before, now she found it rather unsettling. All eyes were on her, even _his._ What was she to say to Thor's observations? What did they want her to say?

She gritted her teeth in annoyance. She really should not be surprised that they had noticed the level of intimacy she and Clint shared. Most people did within an hour of meeting the two of them, though most were wrong as to exact nature of the intimacy between them. Still, this was not a conversation she wanted to have with anyone.

The friendship — and that was all it was no matter how many people assumed there was more to it than that — between her and Clint was not something she could define or explain. It just…was. It was one of those things she chose not to examine too closely, just accepted. It was a gift, something special that did not need defining. It was hers. Hers and his. That was all that mattered.

"Most long term partners are like that," Clint's voice rumbled softly as he answered for her. "You work with someone long enough, closely enough, you get to know their idiosyncrasies. Natasha and I just click, that's all."

He shrugged and then promptly took another huge bite of his food, making it impossible to say anything else about the matter. She could feel his eyes on her again, and she followed suit, taking a bite, figuring that if her mouth was full, she would not have to talk anymore. It was not any of their business anyway.

Tony sat back looking a bit annoyed that they had not been more forthcoming. But she was grateful for small favors. So far he had not opened his mouth to comment about them himself. Nearly dying after having the crap beat out of you several times over several days would be enough to wear anyone out. Bruce looked rather bored. Or maybe he was just tired as well. They all were.

Thor set back into his food with a flourish. Natasha had never seen anyone eat like that and she had spent the last five years mostly in the company of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents, so that was saying something. Steve just drooped, dropping his head into one hand, his elbow propped on the table, his exhaustion palpable. And Clint went back to his watching but not watching her. So much for conversation.

But really, it was hardly the time to have a heart to heart pow-wow. First off, she did not do those. Second, she was still too raw. There was too much she needed to process after all that had happened. But Steve's question stirred memories, and she suddenly found thinking about the past to be much more reassuring than processing the events of the past several days. It was easy to take comfort in remembering the past, especially the day Natalia Romanova first laid eyes on S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, Clint "Hawkeye" Barton.

Her lips twitched with amusement. Stark had called him Legolas. But to her, he would always be Robin Hood, though she had never told him why. Maybe she should? She could feel his eyes on her again, but she ignored him, taking another bite of her pita wrapped whatever it was.

Funny how at the time Natasha had no idea that such a coincidental meeting would change her life so dramatically in ways she had never imagined possible. She did not see him again for many months, but during that time, she thought about him. Everything had changed after that first encounter.


	2. One

**One**

**April 2005**

**Amsterdam**

The hotel had three floors. Natalia found it unimpressive, having stayed in five star accommodations in various exotic locales. The lobby, with its vaulted ceiling, was like a large box, three levels high, and viewable from all floors via open balcony rails. The halls branched off away from the center, and she counted herself lucky that her target's room was not on the stretch that overlooked the lobby. That would have made her job far more difficult, invisibility being imperative for a successful assassination.

She noted the layout in an instant, including potential escape routes, and set up her backup team in strategic locations to keep a look out. She preferred to work alone. It was far easier for a single person to slip in and out unnoticed, but her superiors had insisted on a four man team. She had acknowledged the order with a raised brow but did not question it.

Why should she? She had been psychologically programmed from an early age to accomplish whatever task they gave her without batting an eye.

Her intel suggested she was running a race with the Americans in trying to collect Frederik Berkov, a Russian scientist attempting to defect with crucial research her government did not want to lose. Whatever he was working on, her superiors were taking no chances of Berkov making it out alive to deliver that information to another country. The larger team would watch her back, ensuring she accomplished her task with no hindrances.

Not that she had ever needed a team before, especially with something as simple as this hit.

It should be an easy task: locate the scientist, kill him in a manner that left no fingers pointing back at the FSB, collect his research and get the hell out. But something about the added men, the sense of danger, blared that this task would be anything but easy.

Her true identity lay safely hidden beneath jeans and a bulky sweater that hid her weapons. Her red hair was hidden with a long blonde wig and her green eyes masked behind blue contacts and thick framed glasses; she looked like a college student touring Europe as she sauntered down a second floor hall towards Berkov's room.

She had the scientist's door in sight when all hell broke loose.

Shots were fired from the vicinity of the lobby. Her team called out warnings over her comm. She heard shouts from further up the hall, coming her way. Was nothing ever easy?

Natalia slipped into the nearest room (thankfully empty) and, through a small crack she left open, watched a team of four men in black fatigues storm the scientist's room. She did not know who they worked for, nor did she care. Her team was engaged in a firefight (did they know nothing of stealth?), while her target was being rescued (the Americans?), and she was caught somewhere in between.

She contemplated going into Berkov's room anyway and taking out the four men along with the scientist, but her superiors would not be happy with a blood bath. Besides, another team arrived and entered the room, leaving one man to guard the door.

Her team was greatly outnumbered and outgunned. With her men radioing for instructions, she called an abort. This mission had failed before it had begun. It was time to get out and think about the repercussions of her failure later.

Natalia glanced out at the man guarding the door, but his back was to her. She could slip out and get down the hall before he turned around. She pulled open the door and darted out — and ran directly into another man in black.

She had never seen or heard him coming down the hall. It startled her, because she _always_ saw and heard everything. But not _him._

They both stumbled, and he reached out a hand to steady her. She took note that this one was dressed differently. His short sleeves were tight over the muscles of his arms; all the others had worn long-sleeved fatigues. He was young, somewhere in his late twenties to early thirties — one of those faces that made it difficult to guess his age. His dark hair was spiked up in a bad haircut, but he had the air of a leader: confident, precise, cool headed.

She easily fell into the role of a hotel patron, a frightened young woman in the midst of an attack by gunmen. She glanced up fearfully into his rough but handsome face, and was pinned by steel-blue eyes so intense she froze. Never had she seen eyes like his. This was a man who saw everything. It was unsettling.

Thankfully, as always, her brief flash of true emotion aided her cover. He might see all there was to see, but she was an expert at masking her true self and only showing what she wished for others to see.

"Please don't kill me!" she shrieked in an American accent, shaking violently in his hold. He held her tight by the arm, but broke their gaze to glance back down the hall towards her target's room. In that moment, she caught sight of the patch on his shoulder: a stylized eagle with spread wings.

_S.H.I.E.L.D.? Here?_ _Bojemoi!_

"I won't hurt you," he assured, returning his attention and that disconcerting gaze to her. "We're the good guys. You alright?" he asked, setting her away from him.

_S.H.I.E.L.D.? Good guys? That was laughable!_

She nodded frantically, not breaking her wide-eyed fearful expression. Her lower lip trembled and tears filled her eyes. "I'm so sorry," she babbled. "I heard shooting. Oh my God, why is there shooting?" Her voice wavered.

He did not seem to notice her question; his attention focused on the sound of shots being exchanged downstairs. "Best you return to your room, miss. And lock the door."

He shoved her towards it, and she allowed him to do so, closing the door, but leaving enough of a sliver open for her to watch him go, her eyes taking note that while he had a gun holstered on his thigh, he also wore a quiver strapped to his back and carried a folding bow in his other hand.

That was rather…confounding. How had she missed seeing the bow and quiver? And since when did S.H.I.E.L.D. agents carry bows and arrows? Who did he think he was? Robin Hood?

He disappeared up a flight of steps leading to the next floor, and she slipped out of the room, keeping out of sight of the guard down the hall. Her intention at this point was to just get out and as far away from the hotel and S.H.I.E.L.D. as she could.

She made it downstairs without being seen and eased her head around the doorframe into the lobby, taking in the situation. She could just barely make out Yuri, one of her team, bleeding from a bullet wound to his shoulder. He was holed up against a wall behind a large grandfather clock as he held off two S.H.I.E.L.D. agents.

She could see another member of her team lying dead on the floor, but he was not the only fatality. There was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent down and several civilians who had been caught in the initial crossfire. That left one of her teammates unaccounted for, but Aleksei would not be seen; he moved like a shadow. She had called an abort, and he would already be headed to their extraction point.

Time for her to go as well. Yuri…was on his own.

She had taken a single step when a child's whimper reached her ears over the mayhem. Her gaze found the small girl trying to crawl towards a limp body. The woman was clearly dead.

Natalia should not care, should not stop, but that sight sparked something inside her, reminded her of something she had all but forgotten.

She had only been five when she had lost her own mother. The memory flash was brief, accompanied by a sharp pain in her head and a sudden bout of nausea. She had been programmed to forget the past. The combination was enough to make her shudder.

Frozen in place, she could only watch as the child stood, right as Aleksei showed himself off to her right, his gun leveled at the agents firing at Yuri. The girl was right in the line of fire.

Natalia did not think, only reacted, exploding into motion.

She drew her gun at the same time as she dove, sliding across the floor on her side and grabbing the child to her body, even as she used her momentum to spin and fired her weapon. Her shots hit Aleksei in the chest, and he went down, even as she slipped with the child from the line of fire behind a sofa.

Then she peered over it to aim her weapon at Yuri in order to end it, but it was already over. Yuri dropped to the floor, an arrow sticking from his chest. He was dead.

Natalia glanced up and her gaze collided with puzzled, but sharp steel-blue eyes.

The archer she had run into earlier stood leaning over the third floor balcony rail, his bow still raised. As their eyes met, she saw something in them, caught a glimpse of _him_ , a hint of deep, hidden scars, but also strength and free will. This was a man with choices, who did what he did because he believed it was right.

The sight stirred something deep inside her. What would it be like to have control of her own destiny? To have a choice, to _think_ for herself?

Then the moment passed. She had to get out. It would only take him a moment to process that he had seen her upstairs by the target's room, and what she had just done…

She broke her gaze away, released the girl and scrambled back to the doorway, expecting to feel the bite of an arrow in her back. Those eyes followed her; she could feel them burning into her as she retreated.

"Stop her!"

But it was too late. Natalia was out the front entrance and had slipped into the night, blending in and fading away as only she could do.

"Stop her!"

Clint Barton stood at his perch on the third floor, his bow still outstretched over the balcony railing from his fatal shot that ended the gun fight below, and watched as the blonde beauty he'd encountered on the second floor disappeared.

_What the hell just happened?_

This was supposed to have been an easy mission. He nearly snorted at that thought. Easy? He'd known the moment Fury insisted on more than one team to extract the defecting Russian scientist that it wouldn't be a simple in and out mission. But one could always hope, right?

Clint didn't know what the scientist's research was about. He didn't want to know either. That part wasn't his job. Then again, picking up strange Russian scientists from tourist frequented parts of Europe wasn't usually in his job description either. He was an assassin, not a babysitter. But from what he could gather, whatever the strange little man had been working on was important enough to the WSC that S.H.I.E.L.D. had been sent to collect the man. And Fury had assigned Hawkeye as Team Leader.

He'd thought it was something of a reward for his last mission ending so successfully. He should have known better. Fury never gave his top operatives a walk in the park assignment. No, he'd been given this assignment in case something went wrong.

And something had gone terribly wrong. Clint just wasn't sure what.

The sound of a child's crying brought him back from his thoughts. He shuddered and glanced down at the little girl crying beside her mother's body. His heart clenched in his chest, and he pulled back from the banister.

"Coulson, we have a situation."

"Copy that, Hawk. Report." Coulson's voice came over the comm stuck in his ear.

"Mission accomplished, sir, but… We have a mess here. Multiple casualties: civilian, enemy and our own." The child's cries could be heard even though Clint could no longer see her. His hands shook.

"What happened?"

"I don't know. Intel said the Russians would send an assassin to eliminate our package, but I count three dead Russians in the lobby and based on performance, none of them are of assassin caliber. Not a typical hit by the FSB. I'd say possibly a strike team, but not a very efficient one. Backup for the assassin, perhaps? But that also isn't in keeping with an FSB hit. I count one that escaped…"

He paused, then glanced back over the balcony at the weeping child, seeing again in his mind the blonde girl, first on the second floor not far from their package's room, then down in the lobby…

"Oh fuck."

Clint mentally berated himself as all kinds of a was good — the image of an American college girl touring Europe. He hadn't seen her for what she was.

"Talk to me."

"I believe our assassin is a young woman. Blonde, wearing jeans, grey sweater and glasses. She slipped out before we could stop her. My guess is she aborted her mission when we entered the package's room. She… She shot one of her own team, sir."

"Come again?" It was one of the rare times he actually heard surprise in Coulson's voice.

"There was a firefight in the lobby. I'm not certain how that started, but she saved a child and shot one of the Russians and turned to kill the other, but I got him first. Then she fled."

The silence over his comm was telling. Hell, he was having a hard time processing it himself.

"Coulson?"

"Clear that building and make certain there are no more Russian operatives lurking about and get Alpha Team and the package to the roof for extraction."

"Yes sir."

"And Barton, get me any video surveillance of the woman that hotel security might have caught."

Clint glanced at the one camera in the lobby. He hoped it was recording. In his mind he could still see the blonde sliding across the floor, grabbing the child and turning to fire… He'd never seen another woman move with that kind of precision.

Clint took a deep breath. He could still hear the cries below above the murmurs of other guests who had taken cover when the shooting had begun. Team Delta had secured the lobby, holding position at the exits, and keeping anyone from entering.

"Beta Team, sweep the hotel for hostiles. Alpha is to remain put with the package until further notice. Shoot anything that comes in the door of that room."

Both teams acknowledged the orders.

"Check in when it's clear."

Clint glanced at the mess in the room, skipping over the weeping child and the bloodied body of her mother. "Coulson, we're going to need one hell of a clean up team here, sir."

"I'm already on it."

With a calmness he didn't necessarily feel, Clint made his way from his perch down to the lobby. Then he forced himself to cross it to the little girl huddled by the body of her mother. A man's body lay not far away. The child's father?

He picked the girl up in his arms, cradling her against his chest. "Shhhh… It's alright, little one. It'll be alright."

How he wished he didn't have to lie. Her life would never be the same again. If she was lucky, she had grandparents or an aunt or uncle who would take her in. But if she did not, then she very well might end up in an orphanage. And Clint knew all about orphanages.

He glanced at the Russian the blonde woman had shot. Clint had taken position at the railing of the third floor just as the little girl had stood up, putting herself into the line of fire. He'd drawn, nocked and aimed his arrow at the man in a split second, unwilling to watch another child die if he could help it. But the blonde had dived into the fray and shot the man, so Clint had turned his arrow to the final gunman, ending the bloodshed.

A disturbance near one of the doors caught his attention, and he turned towards it. A man was arguing with one of Delta Team securing the lobby, but Agent Black held his position, gun drawn, and refused the man entrance.

"That's my daughter!" the man shouted, pointing to the girl in Clint's arms. "My God, that's my daughter!"

Clint's eyes slipped closed in relief for a moment, then he nodded at Black to let the man enter. He made his way over to him. As soon as the girl saw the man claiming to be her father, she started struggling in Clint's arms and reaching out for him.

"Papa! Papa!"

Clint gladly handed the child over to her father, who wept and rocked the girl in his arms, even as his eyes locked on the body of his wife. There was nothing Clint could do about his loss, except to express his sorrow and explain that he could not answer any questions as to what had happened at this time. Coulson could handle this part much better than he ever would.

Stepping away, Clint moved to the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent lying on the floor. He stooped down and checked for vital signs he knew he would not find. The agent stared up at the ceiling with unseeing eyes.

Clint hadn't known Thomas Burland well, but had heard good things about the younger agent. He reached out and closed the man's eyes. One never got used to losing a fellow agent in the field, but he'd learned emotion wouldn't change the past. He stared hard at Burland for a moment.

"Hawkeye, this is Beta."

"Go ahead," he replied, rising to his feet. There was no time here for grief. That would come later, with a single glass of whiskey and loud pounding music.

"Building is clear. Exits are covered."

"Roger that. Coulson, you have extraction in place?"

"Waiting on you, Hawk."

"Alpha, proceed to the roof with the package."

"Package is moving."

When it was all over, the scientist safely extracted, debriefings and reports delivered and the mess cleaned up, Clint climbed aboard the Quinjet with Team Beta. The mission was listed as successful, but it did not feel that way.

A little girl had lost her mother. Another family had lost a father. S.H.I.E.L.D. had lost a good man…

Clint turned his thoughts from their dark paths and instead went back to puzzling out the mystery woman that had escaped.

The surveillance camera had indeed caught a fraction of her rescue of the child in the lobby. S.H.I.E.L.D. had confiscated the tape. But Clint had the image burned into his mind.

Who was she? Why had she been there? Why had she killed her own team member to save a child?

He knew better than to ask about her. If he needed to know, Coulson would tell him. But Coulson was being silent on the subject, and that only peaked his curiosity more.

Who the hell was she? And why was he even thinking about her?

In the aftermath of all that had happened, he found himself unable to stop his thoughts long enough to catch some much needed sleep on the flight back. Over and over he saw her in his mind, sliding across the floor, grabbing the child, spinning to fire and making that shot.

And her eyes. There had been something about her eyes when their gazes had locked. It felt as if he'd looked into her and caught a glimpse of the woman beneath the mask of an assassin.

As much as he hated to admit it, even to himself, he was intrigued.

He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, thinking about those eyes…and her pouty lips, and what secrets she held. He might never know, but he could imagine, right?


	3. Two

**Two**

**April 2006**

**Boston**

"This is what I want. You will get it for me, yes?"

Natalia took the folder with hardly a glance at the man. Juan Torres was under the impression that she was here to work for him, but that was not the game she played. She had been sent by one of his competitors.

The faint odor of wood smoke tinged the air as she opened the manila folder and glanced down at a single photograph. She glanced up with a raised brow.

"I am confused, what is it exactly that you want?"

"Information, my dear. That is your specialty, is it not?" He came closer and trailed a finger down her arm. She ignored the touch. It meant nothing. "Among other skills, I am told."

"Not all my skills are for hire." Her voice was cold. There was a time and place for _those_ skills, but it was not here.

Torres froze, briefly met her eyes, and then took a step back. "That is too bad. I would pay well to see all of your… _skills_." He smirked.

"You would pay with your life."

She pretended not to notice that he took another step away from her, his face paling as the smirk disappeared. She _was_ the Black Widow, after all.

"What is it you want?" She glanced back down at the image. It was of a computer monitor. Pulled up on the screen was a list of file names. One was highlighted.

"This is just a photograph of a computer. I am afraid photography is not my forte." She smiled sweetly at him.

"But hacking into high security systems _is_ according to my sources." Torres smiled back.

She lifted a shoulder in a slight shrug. "Could be, for the right price. Depends on what it is you want and from whom. I do not work cheap."

"Money is not a problem. Provided you can get me the information I desire?"

"And what information is that?" For whatever reason, he seemed hesitant to explain exactly what he wanted and that made her cautious.

"Highly sensitive data, concerning an…organization and specifically, its operatives."

He smiled again, in what he probably thought was a charming manner, but which actually made him look something of a fool. Natalia had little use for fools. His vague answer also fueled the warning in her gut.

The last time she had experienced that feeling, she had found herself up against S.H.I.E.L.D., even if that failed mission had led to her freedom from the program — at least until they caught up with her. Eventually, her Russian handlers would find her, but in the meantime, she kept her eyes and options open. But this vague intel…

She tapped her fingernails on the folder, determined to get the information she needed.

"Which organization and what kind of information about its operatives?" Her question was more of a demand than an inquiry. She was getting tired of asking.

His brows rose on his forehead. "Does it really matter?" He looked genuinely perplexed.

_Bojemoi! The man is truly a fool._

She raised a brow right back.

"It might. There are organizations that would mark me for relieving them of such information. I would have to watch my back for months, if not years, kill a lot of people…" She lifted one hand and glanced at her perfectly manicured fingers. "I could break a nail. It gets messy."

She looked back at him with a calculated half smile. "So let me ask again, which organization and what information?"

She was gratified that Torres took another step away from her. "And just how did you manage to get a photo without getting the file itself?"

He looked away, not meeting her eyes.

"I had a contact on the inside that took the photo on his phone and sent it to me. But due to the sensitive nature of the information, he would only give me the name of the file and its location. He refused to access it and risk being caught."

"What exactly is in the file?" It had to be something valuable.

"The file contains a list, matching operative's codenames with their true identities. There is a certain operative who has caused me some difficulty by relieving my second in command of his duties…permanently."

Ah, so the fool had enemies besides the one who had hired her.

"So?" Natalia could care less about personal vendettas. More than likely, the moron wanted to sell the information to the highest bidder. Not a bad idea. She might just forget to mention the file to her employer if it turned out to be worth her while to obtain it. "Hire a new second."

"He was also my brother," Torres snapped.

"My condolences on the loss of his job."

Her tone was dry, her face void of any emotion. The fire popped in the grate, reminding her that the temperature was dropping outside. He was wasting her time.

He ignored her sarcasm.

"Get me the file. I will take the information I want, you can have the rest and sell it. It's a win-win situation for us both."

She perked up at that, or pretended to do so. Not that she was above selling the information, but she was finding this whole scenario rather boring. She let her eyes go wide with feigned interest.

"So you will pay me to steal the information and then give it to me to sell?"

"Yes."

"Where do I find the file?"

He shifted ever so subtly, and Natalia's gut twisted in warning. Her fingers twitched towards the knife in her pocket.

"That is the tricky part."

There was always a catch.

"Where is it?" She remained calm and patient outside though inwardly she seethed. _Just spit it out._

He hesitated, and she handed the manila folder back to him. It was time to push him a bit.

"I am sorry, but without a location…" She shrugged and turned to walk away, prepared for any attack that might come from him.

She knew he would not let her walk away, and he did not. His voice was little more than a whisper.

"S.H.I.E.L.D."

She paused, glancing back over her shoulder. "Excuse me?"

"The data belongs to S.H.I.E.L.D." His voice was stronger, but he looked nervous.

He should. Torres was asking her to break into a S.H.I.E.L.D. database and steal an assassin list. Natalia's face remained an impassive mask, even as she cursed internally.

"And who or what exactly is S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

Her question seemed to jar him from his wariness.

He smirked, some of his earlier attempt at charm returning. "Come, come now. You do not expect me to believe that the Black Widow is ignorant of the organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D."

Of course she was not.

"Never heard of it."

He opened the file again, and pointed to the picture, tapping a blurry emblem on a corner of the screen. Then he reached into his jacket. She tensed, preparing to attack should he pull a weapon, but instead he pulled out an embroidered patch.

"You have never seen this before?"

The patch was familiar: a stylized eagle with spread wings. And she had seen it far more closely than she would have liked almost a year ago, when she had run into that archer she had thought of as Robin Hood ever since. She had known about the organization known as S.H.I.E.L.D. for many years, but until that failed mission in Amsterdam, she had avoided any run-ins with them.

That failure had cost her even as it had freed her. Her superiors had been most displeased at the loss of the scientist and his research. She might have walked away from the hotel unscathed, but she had not walked away from her handlers the same. She had spent two days in the infirmary after their "correction" for her failure to eliminate the scientist, not to mention that she had killed her own teammate just to save some kid who should not have mattered to her…but had.

It had been her breaking point.

Everything that had been building inside of her over the months leading up to that mission had silently exploded. After she had healed enough, she had broken out, leaving the Program behind her and striking out on her own, free of her handlers and their control.

"Never seen it," she lied, frowning at the patch. "Where did you get it? Does it mean something?"

Bitterness flashed across his face.

"I got it off the jacket of the operative who killed my brother. He was spotted on the roof right after the arrow hit Alejandro in the eye. My men gave chase, but in their pursuit, they only managed to get his jacket, which he had shed after it snagged on a fence."

_Sloppy. Should not leave his stuff behind like that._

Natalia reached for the patch, and he let her take it. She fingered it thoughtfully as her mind processed what he had just said.

"Arrow?"

He snorted. "Yes, this operative is a bit unique. He prefers a bow and arrows to a gun."

_Robin Hood?_

"He should be an easy kill if he gives himself away during a hit, then leaves his things behind afterwards."

But she knew better. She had seen his eyes. Robin Hood was too good for those kinds of blunders. There was more to what had taken place than the man had yet mentioned.

"No. It was simple luck that one of my men decided to change his routine. He went to the roof instead of the main floor and spotted the operative just after he had released the shot. My man managed to land at least one bullet in the killer, so the Hawk was a bit incapacitated in his flight."

"Hawk?"

"Hawkeye. That is his codename."

Strange. She was feeling just a bit irate that this idiot's man had wounded Robin Hood. She shook off the feeling. What happened to _him_ should not matter to her.

"And you discovered his codename how?"

He reached into his pocket again, pulling out another patch: a grey rectangle embroidered in black with the name "Hawkeye".

_Well, so much for calling him Robin Hood._

"And what will you do once you have his name?"

"Track him down and kill him."

"I see. Good luck with that. Where exactly is this file? You said it belongs to, what was it? S.H.I.E.L.D.?"

He smiled and pulled a slip of paper from his pocket, fingering it.

"You do not fool me. You know exactly what S.H.I.E.L.D. is." He held out the paper with the address of the building. "Get me the file, and I will make it very much worth your while."

She looked hard at the slip of paper.

It would not be easy getting that kind of information. Definitely a challenge, however. Maybe even fun. Her lips quirked into a sneer. She could use a challenge, even if she had no intention of turning over the file to Torres. He would not need it anyway.

She took the paper, and as she slipped it into her pocket, she palmed one of her small knives — her widow's sting. Her hand left her pocket even as she spun, her movements so swift that he did not even have time to dodge as the blade bit into his throat, slashing it open.

She left him gurgling in a pool of his own blood, his death similar to the _modus operandi_ of a well known drug cartel. The police would also find evidence in his files linking the man to the cartel and come to the appropriate conclusions. The competitor who had hired her would never be suspected.

She calmly picked up the folder he had dropped, memorized the information in the photo as she walked to the cheerfully burning fireplace in the north wall. Then she tossed the manila folder into the flames. The scrap of paper with the address followed, its information safely stored in her memory. Her employer did not need to know about it. She had no intention of turning that information over to them.

For her, it would be a bit of entertainment and a challenge. Just why she was even curious about _his_ name, she did not bother to ponder.

What she did consider for a moment was that her plotting would put her on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar in a big way. And for what? A name? A bit of fun? But the more she considered the game, the less she cared about the danger.

As she walked calmly away from the fire, she pulled out her phone and keyed in a number.

"Target eliminated. Nothing of value. Please verify funds have been deposited."

The two patches she stuffed into her boot. She did not ponder that either.

**May 2006**

**Helicarrier**

"You summoned me, sir?"

Clint stood at the door to Nick Fury's private sanctum. He could count on one hand the number of times he had been summoned here, with a couple of fingers left over.

"Agent Barton." Fury stood. "Come in. Have a seat." He motioned to a chair situated at a computer terminal. At the moment the screen was dark.

_Oh, this will be fun. Just like sitting in the heat, scratching fly bites._

Clint flopped down in the chair, stretching his legs out and crossing his ankles even as he crossed his arms over his chest. He despised assignments being presented to him in this manner.

Fury — _damn him —_ liked the intimidation factor of standing over the shoulder of an agent, pointing out whatever information could just as easily have been absorbed without his hovering behind them. Being here, in Fury's sanctum, made it even worse.

But he said nothing.

Clint had learned during his first months of working with S.H.I.E.L.D. that you didn't piss off Director Nick Fury. Not without serious repercussions. Clint had no desire to spend another month in a tropical climate, infested with fleas and plagued by flies — _and don't forget the lice! —_ waiting for some bad guy to decide to do something other than scratch his ass.

So he kept his mouth shut, as he sat in the most comfortable but disrespectful position he could manage without fear of backlash, and waited.

Fury ignored it, of course.

"I have an assignment for you."

_No shit._

Clint inclined his head, keeping his eyes on the dark screen, his face an emotionless mask.

Fury reached over Clint's shoulder to touch the screen. Clint gritted his teeth in annoyance but maintained his lackadaisical posture. He had long suspected Fury of subterfuge, but wouldn't give the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. the satisfaction of manipulating a reaction out of him.

Besides, it was more entertaining to remain passive and annoy Fury without doing anything other than sitting there.

The screen flickered to life, and Fury began to talk as pictures began to flash on the screen. Clint paid close attention to every detail while managing to pull off looking bored. Fury continued without pause in his briefing, though his one-eyed gaze flickered in Clint's direction with a look of clear annoyance. Clint repressed a smirk.

"Drakov," Fury was saying. "A Russian diplomat who happened to be a threat to certain factions within the Russian government. That's his daughter. She was everything to him after his wife died. Their only child. When he refused to bend to manipulation, the little girl disappeared. They found her body a month later. She was seven."

Clint swallowed hard and flinched mentally away from the images summoned from his nightmares, grateful when the Director continued.

Several other pictures flashed and Fury continued his monologue. Sensitive information had been leaked. Important officials had turned up dead. A hospital fire that had killed more than thirty people, including a high profile general, and injured dozens more.

Several minutes passed like this, with Clint watching the photos, knowing that Fury intended to assign him to a hit. Give the agent a reason to disassociate from the target being human. Make it clear the target deserved to die, that the hit was justified. Clint had done it before, more times than he cared to remember, yet he watched vigilantly, letting the images register.

Death, however necessary, always added red to his ledger. He'd wipe it out another day. Today somebody deserved to die.

_But who?_

He blinked in surprise as a new image flashed on the screen. A familiar hotel in Amsterdam. A photo of the dead Russians in the lobby.

A little less than a year ago, Clint's team had been sent in to grab a Russian scientist who wished to defect, along with his valuable research. They had managed to find Berkov before the Russians could kill him, but there had been one hell of a firefight that had caused several civilian casualties and killed one member of his team.

_And_ her _. That's where he'd seen_ her _._

The image changed again, and this time he was looking at _her._

He straightened in his chair, pulling his legs under him. He stared at the image of the blonde woman from the hotel. The one who had run into him and whom he had at first mistaken for a frightened innocent. She had confused the hell out of him not ten minutes later by diving into the fray and saving a child, while turning her weapon on the Russian Clint had just managed to get in his sights. She would have taken out the other one, too, if his arrow hadn't hit the man first.

She'd glanced up at him and their gazes had locked, and he'd seen _her._ Not the Russian operative, but the woman. He'd seen her pain, the festering wounds that disguised themselves as scars, the longing in her eyes for something more. Then the moment had ended and she'd been gone.

She had crossed his mind more times than he could count since that day. He sank back in his seat as he wondered who she was.

The screen changed again, showing a video of the same woman, only this time her hair was a deep red.

_Oh hell yeah, that suits her better than the blonde!_

Clint almost grinned but caught himself before Fury saw it. He forced himself to relax his posture as he watched. Beautiful, graceful as a ballerina, and agile as a gymnast, she was dressed in a black bodysuit, weapons of all kinds strapped to her thighs, waist and wrists.

_And I thought she was sexy in the faded jeans and baggy sweater. Damn._

He leaned toward the screen, resting his arms on the desk. He watched her flip up and wrap her thighs around a guard's neck — _is that Paul; the S.H.I.E.L.D. agent?_ Paul dropped to the ground, unconscious.

Another agent stepped into the fray, and to his astonishment, Clint found himself inwardly cheering her on as he watched her skill in hand-to-hand combat. She moved with fluid grace and purpose, like a cat on the prowl.

_Amazing_.

There weren't many women like this one. She singlehandedly beat the shit out of several agents with a finesse that he found exhilarating. He'd give a lot to spar with that woman, whoever she was.

_Too bad she's an enemy._

He sighed.

She reached the end of a hall, her green eyes piercing as she smirked up at the camera, obviously wanting to be seen. This was a different woman than the one he'd seen in Amsterdam, and he wondered where the wounded woman had gone.

She pulled open a door, and the surveillance camera view switched to the room she entered. She sauntered to a computer terminal and pulled out a disk, inserting it into the drive. Then she proceeded to hack into S.H.I.E.L.D. security with the speed and finesse of the legendary Tony Stark. Apparently finding what she was looking for, she glanced up at the security camera and blew it a kiss.

_Incredible!_

The video screen stopped, freezing on her triumphant face. Fury's voice brought him back to reality and made him aware that his jaw had dropped. He snapped his mouth shut, blanked his face and kept his eyes on the screen, on _her._

And then he saw it, caught another glimpse of _her,_ the young woman he'd seen in Amsterdam screaming out to him to help her. He swallowed.

"Your target," came Fury's dry voice, "is Natalia Romanova. She's also known as the Black Widow, among other aliases. Ever heard of her?"

Clint tensed, his hands forming fists where they rested on the desk.

_That's who she was? Fuck!_

"Who hasn't? She's the best Russia has. I've heard none can touch her in hand-to-hand. I see why." He forced himself to relax and sit back in the chair, recrossing his ankles and arms. So much for late night fantasies about a pretty blonde in a baggy sweater wielding a Makarov in an Amsterdam hotel.

Fury nodded. "She was. We've learned that she was able to slip her handlers' leash and has been acting independently since. The Russians aren't very happy about that. They'd also like her dead."

"Understandable." Most governments didn't tolerate loose cannons. Clint knew that first hand.

"She was a valuable commodity until she started working for whoever paid the most, even if it meant working against her own government. Prior to this, we didn't worry a whole lot about her. Oh, we've kept tabs on her while she was working for the Russians, and she's been a concern, but over the past ten months, she's taken a different course. This last incident made it clear just how dangerous she can be. She had no problems getting past _our_ security and accessing a file that contains some, well, shall we say, sensitive information?"

Fury moved to lean against the edge of the desk, arms crossed, facing Clint. "That computer system contains some information we'd rather not have in anyone else's hands."

"And you want me to recover it?" Clint blinked. That wasn't his customary assignment and not really his skill set. He was a sniper. He made the clean, distant kills and he preferred it that way. Of course, he already knew where Fury was headed with all this; he just didn't want to accept it.

"No." Fury's voice sent a shiver down Clint's spine.

He glanced up from the screen he'd been staring at intently. Pretty or not, Natalia Romanova aka the Black Widow was the enemy, and from the sound of it, his arrow was going to be the last thing she felt. It was a bitter truth he would rather not accept. It felt wrong.

"What is it you want me to do?"

Fury breathed out and gazed down at Clint with a calculating look that made Clint nervous. Fury wanted to know something he either wouldn't or couldn't outright ask, but Clint would be damned if he knew just what.

_Please don't make me kill her._

There was something about that woman that appealed to him. And it wasn't just about how attractive he found her body or how fascinated he was with her fighting skills. Oh sure, that was part of it, but there was more to her than met the eye, more than she let anyone see.

But he saw it. She had saved that child! Cold assassins didn't stop to save children in the line of fire.

Well, he did, but that was different. He was far from the typical assassin. And she…

_Best not to think about it too much, Barton. Only get you in trouble. Again._

"Here's the thing." Whatever Fury had been looking for, he must have found it. The tension left the man and one corner of his mouth lifted sardonically. "She didn't actually take anything. That's the strange part of all this."

"She didn't take anything?" Clint's brows rose and he looked back at the image on the screen.

"Nope."

Just what was she up to? Smart, capable of breaking into a secure S.H.I.E.L.D. facility and hacking into one of the toughest computer systems in the world. She should have been able to waltz out with all sorts of valuable information. So why didn't she?

"She broke into a S.H.I.E.L.D. facility, beat the shit out of at least a half a dozen of our agents, hacked into our computer system and then…didn't take anything?" He glanced from the screen to Fury with a baffled look.

"Yep." Fury continued to stare at him with that unsettling one-eyed gaze. It felt as though the Director wanted Clint to figure everything out without giving him enough information to do so.

Clint hated that. It was one of the many reasons he'd rather deal with Coulson. Phil actually explained everything in that dull but matter-of-fact way of his. However, Clint wasn't talking to Coulson but Fury, which meant that whatever the Black Widow had accessed wasn't just important, it was detrimental.

With Fury calling the shots, there was no room for any errors or his ass would be toast. He rather liked his ass, too. One of the girls down in logistics had told him he had a cute ass, and he'd prefer to keep it intact.

Clint shook his head, trying to make sense of just what the Black Widow had done. Was there something he had missed? He replayed the video in his mind, and came to the only possible conclusion.

"That doesn't make any sense."

"No, it doesn't," Fury agreed. "Especially considering which file she accessed." Fury lifted his one visible brow.

"Yeah, because I know what that was," Clint muttered in frustration. He knew Fury would get to it eventually, but he really hated the way the man could beat around the bush to make a point.

"Don't be a smart ass, Barton."

"Sorry, sir."

"No, you're not."

Clint smirked, but kept his mouth shut. Fury could just be pushing his buttons, still trying to get a reaction from him. But some niggling sensation at the back of Clint's mind disagreed. It was more likely that Fury was making a point of some kind, a point he could not come right out and say. It would be up to Clint to figure out what it was.

Fury leaned forward and tapped the screen again, continuing the video at an angle that showed the computer screen.

The Widow clicked on a file, opening a document of some kind. She ran a finger down the screen, as if searching for a specific piece of information, then she smiled. Using the mouse, she highlighted a single line in the document. Clint squinted at it, but couldn't read the tiny print, though he knew the surveillance video would have been enhanced to reveal exactly what Natalia Romanova had noted.

Then to his surprise, she glanced up at the camera again, winked, then stood and walked away.

Clint blinked, even his internal sarcasm speechless at what he was seeing.

The Black Widow paused to look back over her shoulder at the camera one last time. She said something, but the video didn't contain audio. The best he could tell by reading her lips, she said "See you later, Robin Hood."

He must have read her wrong because that made no sense. None of what he'd seen made any sense. Unless she was making fun of him for using a bow? In which case… Had she been talking to him?

_What in Hell?_

Then she walked out. Just walked out and left the file pulled up on the screen with that one line highlighted.

"What was in that file?" he asked, looking up at his boss and thinking if Fury didn't give him a straight answer, he might just get a little bit irritated. Clint didn't like being irritated.

Fury winced.

_Oh, that can't be good._

"It's an operative's list, matching code names with their identities."

The blood drained from Clint's face and a chill ran down his spine. _His_ name was on that list.

"But she didn't take it?" Why would a spy break into a facility, access such information and then leave it behind? That list would be worth millions to the right parties and S.H.I.E.L.D. had plenty of enemies willing to pay for it.

"Yep."

"Why?" Now he was feeling really confused and completely off kilter, a state he almost never found himself in.

"We don't know. From the looks of it, she was only interested in one name."

_I don't like the sound of that._

"Whose?"

Fury cocked a brow that spoke volumes without his actually coming right out and saying it.

_Great._

"Am I a target sir?"

"Don't know, Barton. I can't read the woman's mind. Maybe she just wants a date."

Clint blew out a frustrated breath and ignored that last comment. "What is it you expect me to do?"

"The Council feels that she cannot be allowed to live, not waltzing in like she did and thumbing her nose at us while looking like she was merely there for some R & R. Not to mention having seen that list. You are ordered to eliminate her."

Clint closed his eyes. Such a waste of talent. He'd give a lot to have that woman working with him.

An idea popped into his head. "Sir, what if…"

"The Council wants her dead, Barton."

He blinked his eyes open and glared up at Fury. "But sir…"

"Did you not hear a thing I have told you? The woman is a menace. She kills and makes it look fun. She toyed with our agents like they were training dummies, blew kisses at our security cameras and waltzed out like she owned the place. And that was just today! I've not even touched the tip of the iceberg of what she's done over the last ten months. The _Council_ wants her dead."

_But she didn't kill anyone to get the information. And the way she'd managed it!_

"Yeah, but…"

"And she knows the identity of one of our top assassins." Fury looked at him pointedly. There was no mistaking just whose name she had been after. "And she was recently seen meeting with Juan Torres. Remember him?"

How could he forget. That had been a bad day. A really bad day.

"So I _am_ a target."

"I don't know, Barton! You willing to wait and find out? The Council wants her dead for good reason. By the way, Torres didn't make it out of that meeting with Romanova alive."

Well, he couldn't really argue with that, now could he? But why did she want _his_ name? He had the oddest impression it wasn't because she wanted to kill him, though he wouldn't unnecessarily bet his life on that notion.

But this was wrong. He didn't want to kill her.

"Sir, she saw me in Amsterdam. She'll recognize me. That should preclude me from this assignment."

Something that Fury should damn well know, based on his debriefing after Amsterdam. Though he hadn't been on that mission as an assassin, but as team leader, his weapon of choice would make it easy for a woman as smart as Natalia Romanova to put it all together. So what game was Fury playing here?

"Being as you're going in with hit orders, she won't see you. That's what you do best, isn't it, Agent Barton?"

Clint sighed loudly and his arguments died a swift death. There was nothing for it then.

Fury slid him a case containing a computer disk with the details of his mission. Clint picked it up and clambered to his feet, taking one last look at the video screen.

"When do I leave?"

Fury glanced down at his watch.

"That video is less than two hours old. I want you in place ASAP. Coulson will meet you on the flight deck. He'll handle the rest of your briefing in flight and will be running the comm and overseeing exfil. Wheels up in thirty." Fury's brows rose in question.

Clint inclined his head in an unspoken acknowledgement. He could make that time. He started to head out but Fury's voice stopped him in his tracks.

"I expect you to do the right thing, Agent Barton."

The words were ominous and filled with a deeper meaning. Clint nodded and left, but the words played over and over in his head as he collected his gear. What was Nick Fury up to? Was this a test of some kind? Clint knew in his gut that Fury expected something else from him, beyond following the Council's orders. But what?

Shaking his head and mumbling under his breath, he jogged through the Helicarrier towards the flight deck, where Coulson waited for him. As he approached, a feeling of dread settled on him. This mission was going to forever change his life. He could feel it.

**To be continued...**


	4. Three

****If you are reading, please leave a review so I know. They really motivate me to write faster! I don't need an essay. Just a few words about why you like the story will suffice! Thanks!** **

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**Three**

**April 2006**

**Somewhere over Europe**

"The Black Widow has been a very naughty spider over the past year."

Clint glanced up from his folder to look at Phil Coulson, whose lips quirked in a slight smile at his own joke, which for Coulson meant that they barely moved.

Clint smirked. He had never met anyone who could pull off expressionless as well as Phil. And it wasn't just his expression. Nothing seemed to phase the man. Ever. Even in the midst of a full out hand to hand fight, Coulson was all business.

And the man could kick ass, Clint knew that first hand, having had his own kicked a few times when he'd first come on board with S.H.I.E.L.D. and had the "honor" of having Phil Coulson assigned as his handler.

He'd been a cocky son of a bitch back then.

He still was, Clint could admit to himself, but he was good enough now to get away with it. He hadn't been when he'd first joined S.H.I.E.L.D., although he'd thought he was. He'd been an Army Ranger, after all, and one of the best. Coulson had been one of several to teach him that the skills he'd learned in the Special Forces were only a stepping stone to what he was capable of accomplishing. Special Forces was one thing. A level seven S.H.I.E.L.D. agent was something else entirely. Coulson and his other mentors had taken his skills and talents and honed them into such proficiency that he was now considered one of the deadliest weapons on two legs that S.H.I.E.L.D. employed.

And that was with his only being level five.

When he had achieved that level a few months ago, Coulson had stated that when Clint reached level seven, they'd all be screwed. Several agents had laughed at the seeming joke, but Clint knew Coulson hadn't been joking.

In the four plus years he had been with S.H.I.E.L.D., he had made a name for himself, both with his fellow agents as well as their enemies. He advanced quickly because Clint was damn good at what he did, and not just marksmanship, hand to hand combat, or stealth, but weapons design, security systems and electronics. He had always been mechanically inclined and good with his hands. Even back in his circus days as a kid, he had been able to fix just about anything. He had designed his folding bow and automated quiver along with various arrowheads himself, refusing to even let Stark Industries see the plans. It had taken him a couple years to get it right, and he still tinkered with improvements, but it was his and his alone, and S.H.I.E.L.D. had approved it as his primary weapon.

When he'd first been recruited, his use of a bow had garnered him some ridicule from the other agents. That derision ceased when, a mere six months into his training, he scored highest ranking in marksmanship within S.H.I.E.L.D. — with any weapon handed to him, be it his bow, rifle or a handgun. The handgun was his least favorite weapon, and he had bested the other top marksmen only marginally — pure damn luck he had managed that! A pistol just never felt right in his hands, not like his bow or even his rifle. With those, he had scored so far above the other marksmen, they had given him the codename, Hawkeye.

There had been a time, not that long ago, when his skill as well as the respect of his fellow agents would have gone to his head and made him something of an arrogant prick. But those first couple years working with Coulson had helped to strip him of the chip on his shoulder — or most of it. Phil had pointed out to him that he had nothing left to prove, that he had already demonstrated his superiority, multiple times.

Coulson also reminded him that being the best didn't make him better than everyone else, and when Clint had smarted off in reply, Coulson had kicked his ass again, just to remind Clint that he could still do it.

And he'd done it without any expression whatsoever on his face. Clint could never figure out how the man did that. He himself felt things too deeply to hide his emotions the way Phil did.

Which reminded him that he needed to keep his emotions in check or Phil would pick up on his attraction to his current target. He didn't know _why_ he had…well, for lack of a better word, _feelings_ for a woman he had briefly run into and hadn't even met, but something about her had touched a part of him in a most unsettling manner.

This mission was going to prove to be one of his most difficult. He knew that in his gut. He focused back on his file.

"When did she break with the FSS?" Clint asked, trying to make heads or tails of the information he had been given. When the USSR had fallen apart, the KGB had become the FSS. From what Clint had read, it was pretty much the same thing.

Phil didn't even look up from where he was fiddling with some of the communications equipment that would keep them in touch during his mission. It all had to be checked and double checked before he went into the field.

"Our intelligence reported that she broke off shortly after Amsterdam," Coulson said in that monotone voice of his as he fiddled with a cable. "There was rather a mad scramble by Moscow. She just disappeared on them. Nothing to explain why."

Clint wondered about that. He had seen something in her when their eyes had met in that hotel lobby. Some emotion that led him to believe she fought an internal battle. And she had saved that kid, killing one of her own to do so. Perhaps that had something to do with her decision to leave the FSS, but it didn't explain why she had struck out on her own.

He flipped ahead to the pages that expounded on the various exploits of the Black Widow over the past ten months and came to the conclusion that the woman either didn't care or had a death wish. She was accruing enemies faster than any other wild card out there. Her own government had a contract out on her.

But she was good. Very good, and to date had eluded all sent to take her out.

He flipped back to the earlier pages with the information they had about the program that had trained the Black Widow. He had never heard of the Red Room Academy before.

"What kind of program is this anyway? Brainwashing? Chemical control protocols? Hypnosis?" He turned the page and the blood drained from his face. "Children," his voice was hoarse, "they start them as children?" He glanced over at Coulson, one of the few people who knew his past in full.

Coulson looked up at his words, and Clint saw a rare flash of emotion cross his handler's face. "Yes, as young six, though from what we could learn, Romanova was a little older when she was 'recruited', if you can call it that. She was an orphan they took off the street."

Clint shook his head. He could imagine what kind of 'training' the woman had endured to become considered the best in the espionage business. Certainly not the kind of training he had been put through with S.H.I.E.L.D. For certain, he'd had his own internal wounds and scars from having a less than ideal childhood, but he had been an adult, if young, when he was recruited and had already endured all the Army could throw at him.

In a bizarre twist of fate, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s recruitment had been a balm to his wounds, giving him a reason to hope and a future he couldn't have dreamed of when Phil had found him. Thanks to the man he now called his handler and friend, he had a career he loved with a purpose that helped him begin to balance the red in his ledger.

It could have been very different. _Should_ have ended with him dead. Coulson had been sent to kill him, after all.

But Phil had made a different call, one that had gotten him in deep shit with the Council, even though Clint had eventually been proven innocent of the crimes of which he had been accused. Phil's punishment, for bringing him in instead of killing him, had been to become Clint's handler, responsible for overseeing his training and held accountable for any mistake Clint made.

Clint was grateful, not just for having his life spared, but for the man Phil had helped him to become. Phil had looked at him and seen something no one else had: Potential. He had helped Clint find the person he was meant to be, deep down inside.

But Natalia didn't have that. She had been a child, orphaned like himself, but instead of a circus, she had spent her formative years in what consisted of an espionage training camp. The information they had was limited, but he could imagine what it would take to turn a child into the lethal killer who could take out one of her own without blinking an eye.

_But what about her saving that child then? Why did she do that?_

There was more to Natalia Romanova than met the eye.

Clint had tried to explain that to Fury during his briefing, but Fury had refused to listen. Come to think of it, that wasn't exactly like Nick Fury. Sure the man was a hard ass, but he usually kept his options open, which meant listening to his agents. After, if he disagreed, then he'd make it clear that there was no discussion, but to not even listen…

And what was with that look Fury had given him? "Phil, has Fury ever given you an odd look during a briefing."

Coulson looked up at him, and Clint had the vague impression Phil thought he'd lost his mind. "Which look? The man has dozens. I can categorically name at least twenty-five..."

Clint rolled his eyes. "That look he gets when he's not saying what he's really thinking but he expects you to read his mind and just _know_ what it is he wants."

A flash of something passed quickly in Coulson's eyes, and the man stared at him hard a moment, before slowly asking, "What exactly did Fury say to you during your briefing?"

"You want it all word for word?"

"Smart ass." Deadpanned, as only Coulson could do. Clint smirked. "When he gave you your orders, what did he say?"

Having always prided himself on his good memory, Clint replayed the briefing over in his mind. "He gave me the basic intel, and then there was a video of the Widow beating the hell out of our agents and pulling up that file, and that comment she threw over her shoulder, which really bugs me a bit too."

"Spider bugs you? That's surprising." Coulson's lips twitched again in a hidden smile.

Shaking his head, Clint ignored him. "But it was after, while I was trying to get a grasp on why she would break in to see that list and then not take it. Fury didn't come right out and tell me what I was expected to do, though I knew where it was going. He just _looked_ at me. And I asked him what he expected me to do, and he said the Council had determined she was a threat and they'd ordered her eliminated."

"The _Council_ ordered..." Coulson paused, raising a questioning brow before going back to checking the equipment.

Clint blinked. Then he thought back over what Fury had said...or rather hadn't. "As I was leaving Fury's office, he told me he expected me to do the right thing."

Coulson froze, his eyes lifting slowly to Clint's face. The man of little expression for once looked deeply shaken, and Clint could count on one hand the number of times he'd seen anything phase Phil Coulson.

Phil swallowed, then his face returned to its usual expressionless mask as he looked back down at the equipment. "I'm sure that's exactly what you'll do, Barton."

Clint told himself he imagined the murmured, "God help us all."

"Mic check."

Coulson's voice came over the comm unit in Clint's ear. "Loud and clear, Watchdog."

"Copy that, Hawkeye. Drop zone in five."

Clint checked his straps one more time, then moved to the back of the quinjet and hit the switch. The air swooshed into the cargo bay as the door lowered, and he stepped out on the ramp. It never got old, jumping out into thin air.

At least once he overcame his fear as a child. You couldn't swing from a trapeze or walk a tight rope if you feared heights, and Clint had wanted so badly to be _seen,_ to be recognized for some accomplishment after losing his parents and being nothing but another mouth to feed in the orphanage, that he had overcome his fears and cultivated something of an adrenaline addiction.

"Jump in 30 seconds," Phil's voice came again over his earpiece, even though the man stood not far from him, holding onto the cargo bay netting. "You know, Barton, we could have just landed."

Clint grinned at Phil. "Now where's the fun in that, Watchdog?"

Coulson shook his head and glanced at his watch. "Five seconds." Clint nodded. "Jump."

With a final grin at his handler, Clint stepped out into nothing and the freedom it provided. This was flying without wings, sailing along on the air currents like the bird for which he was named.

His eyes picked out his target site, and he leaned down, letting gravity pull him towards it until his altimeter read 2000 feet, then he pulled his shoot open, relishing the sudden jerk then enjoying the downwards floating. He landed right beside his target, a nondescript car left for them by S.H.I.E.L.D. to use in Europe while tracking the mysterious Black Widow.

"Nice landing, hotshot," Phil's voice came over his earpiece, and Clint lifted his hand, middle finger extended in the direction of the quinjet, which hovered over a nearby barren field. He heard Coulson's sniff of disdain. "Are you done playing and ready to work yet?" Phil's voice asked.

Clint snorted. "Affirmative, Watchdog. But it's not playing, it's called training. Got to keep in practice. I never know when you or Fury will want me to jump out of one of those things."

"You _like_ jumping out of one of these things. I think you'd do it daily if we'd let you. Probably without a 'chute."

Clint grinned. "You might just be right." He unclipped from his parachute and began the task of refolding it as the jet set down.

Phil's voice interrupted his work. "New report came in. Target last seen in Prague."

Clint glanced up at the jet, where he could see Coulson stepping off the ramp laden down with their gear. "She's on the move then. She was in Berlin not twelve hours ago." He grinned. "And you were complaining about taking the time for a jump, but it's put us over an hour closer to Prague."

He laughed when Coulson gave him the same gesture he'd made minutes earlier. As far as he'd observed, he was the only one to ever get that response from Phil.

"Roger that, Watchdog. Hawkeye out."

**May 2006**

**Vienna, Austria**

Natalia was being followed and she knew it. It was not anything new. She was often followed; it went with her line of work. She had already dealt with two tails between Paris and Prague, but the latest one was proving more difficult to spot, and without spotting him, she could not determine who he worked for…

Oh who was she kidding. It was S.H.I.E.L.D. It had to be. After that stunt she had pulled with that damned list, she was not surprised that they were after her. Given the cunning of the tail shadowing her, she was more surprised that she was still walking. She knew that, almost welcomed it, but some small part of her still fought death.

Being as she was not dead yet, either her tail was not an assassin sent to kill her, or because she was keeping to crowded public areas as she traveled, he was waiting until she was alone to do the deed. She would bet on the latter. And because she had a job to do that would require her being in a less than public area of Budapest in just a few days, she needed to lose him.

She moved easily through the streets of Vienna, mingling and looking for all the world as a tourist, glancing up at the stunning architecture lining the streets. Only she was not looking at the buildings. She had seen them before, having intimate knowledge of this city after spending over a month here a couple years ago on an assignment.

She was looking for her shadow. He was up high; she could feel his eyes on her. They burned into the back of her neck.

It had started in Prague, that burning feeling. She had felt it briefly, before eluding it long enough to slip from the city. But it had not taken long for him to catch back up to her. She had felt it in a small town between Prague and Krakow as she sat in a small pub. There were few windows and she had made certain to sit in a corner away from them, and yet she could feel the tingling burn of his gaze. She had searched the faces of the other patrons, but she could not identify him. It was a bit unnerving. She could usually spot her shadows easily, but this one…

He was good. Very good.

Unable to locate him, and knowing if she left the pub alone, she would wind up dead in the dark street, she had idled up to a brute of a man at the bar and smiled seductively. It had not taken much to get him talking and even less to get him to leave with her. She used his presence to keep the tail from getting trigger happy, letting the man accompany her back to her room in a local inn with the lure of sharing her bed.

Instead he had slept on the floor, thanks to a swift knock to his thick skull when he got grabby.

In Krakow, she had been sipping coffee in a small café when she had felt it again, that tingling burning feel on her neck. It was becoming familiar and more frequent. But again, she could not spot him. Not in the crowds, not across the street or in the café, and not even along the roofline. He stayed hidden, watching her movements, making none of his own, and that unnerved her.

She took a bite of her pastry, then dabbed at the crumbs on her lips daintily, letting her eyes drift curiously over the buildings across the street. He had to be there. She could _feel_ him, but there was no movement, nothing out of place.

Damn he was good. This one knew his job and did it well. He was patient, quiet and still as a shadow, and could sit for hours without twitching a muscle. She knew because that was all it would take for her to notice him.

It definitely had to be S.H.I.E.L.D. Only they had agents of that caliber, and this one must be their best. She had been a fool to go after that list.

She still did not understand why she had gone to all that trouble, put herself on S.H.I.E.L.D.'s radar, just to learn the name of a man she had seen for less than two minutes and would most likely never see again.

_Clinton Barton._

Robin Hood had a simple name.

She was glad she knew it, though learning it had put her in jeopardy. Knowing his name made her feel as if she knew him on some small personal level. In a way, she did, and for some reason it was comforting to her.

When he had looked into her eyes that last time in that hotel, she had seen _him_. She had seen the man, not the agent, and she had felt something tug at her.

She wanted what he had. Freedom.

To do what she wished without being controlled or manipulated, without having her mind toyed with, her memories twisted. Without being forced to use her body to achieve her handlers' demands.

So she had broken with the Program and set out on her own, not caring what she did or for whom. She was in control for the first time, but it did not free her, nor wipe the memories that haunted her.

It did not change whatever they had done to her.

Her time was running out. She knew that. She could not keep on as she was. The unexplained headaches came more frequently, and with it the bouts of nausea. Memories returned; deeds she had done that she had been meant to forget. Most of them she wished had remained forgotten.

Without the reinforced psychological tampering, without the mind altering drugs and hypnosis—

Whatever the FSS had done to her was breaking down in her mind, and she was beginning to see herself for what she truly was — what she had done — and she found that inner part of herself that the FSS had never completely been able to touch recoiling in horror.

And then there were the nightmares. She had not suffered from those since early in her training, but now she could barely sleep. She wanted it to end.

Maybe _that_ was why she had broken into S.H.I.E.L.D. and looked at the file. She knew they would come after her, put her down like the rabid dog she was. It was probably for the best. And yet, something inside her fought death. That same deep part of her that hated everything they had made her also refused to give up.

Ironic.

And so here she was now in Vienna. She had led him here purposely to lose him. She knew this city, and if she was going to make her meeting with her contact in Budapest, she had to lose him today.

She could feel his eyes on her as she moved through the crowds. He was up high. She smiled. That would work to her advantage.

She kept her eyes low, avoiding the skyline, until she came to a certain cross street. She turned a corner, then quickly scooted up another small street, then whirled as she came to an open plaza with a fountain. If he were following her along this route, he could not keep her in his sights and not actually _move_. And in a way as to make himself visible _._ She had traveled the rooftops and knew exactly where he would have to go to keep her in his line of vision, so as she spun, she spotted the shadow on the roof.

_Got you.._

It was only a brief glimpse, vague, but she had seen him. And knowing exactly where he was, and knowing the paths of the rooftops, she was able to disappear, leaving Vienna and the tingling, burning sensation behind her as she headed for Hungary.

**To be continued…**

**If you are reading, can you please let me know in a review? Reviews are highly motivating! I write faster when I get reviews! :)**


	5. Four

**Much thanks to Alpha_Flyer for beta reading this story! I really appreciate the input!**

**Four**

Natalia Romanova led Clint on quite the chase across Middle Europe. She didn't stay in one location for long.

_Smart girl._

In Prague, Clint found her, but she managed to elude him after only a brief glance. She left a dead German operative behind, and he and Coulson had to call that in and wait for further instructions.

New intel sent them off to Poland.

In Warsaw, he slipped into the attic of a small pub she'd entered and after drilling a small hole, used a remote camera to watch her as she sipped her drink.

She sensed him. She was wary. And she used a hulking brute of a man as a shield, hanging on his arm and flirting shamelessly.

She was good, but Clint already knew that.

The man left the pub with her, and he followed. They entered an inn, and he set up on a roof across the street. He didn't catch another glimpse of her that night. She was too smart to stand near a window.

The next morning, she left with a group of tourists and caught the train. There was no sign of the brute she had taken back to the inn with her.

In Krakow, he watched her sip coffee and eat a pastry in a quaint shop. She seemed just a normal woman enjoying breakfast, but Clint could see the dark circles under her eyes, the way she jerked around when another patron dropped a mug.

Her eyes were never still. She noticed everyone and everything, and she sensed she was being watched. She had placed herself at the center table in the busy shop, and her eyes scanned the crowds in the street, searching even the rooftops more than once.

But she wouldn't see _him._ He laid unmoving in the shadows, his eyes always watching, seeing things she probably didn't even know she revealed, such as the tremble in her lower lip when a little girl with ribbons smiled up at her as she walked by with a pastry.

It troubled Clint, the little glimpses that he caught of the real woman hidden inside the outward mask. She was a skilled spy, a notorious assassin, the Black Widow, known to lure men to her bed to get close enough to kill them.

But she was also a troubled woman who had been made into a killer from the time she was a child. Clint struggled with that knowledge. She hadn't chosen to be what she was. But she was dangerous, and orders were orders; he had a job to do.

Some days he really didn't like what he did.

When the little girl and her mother passed Natalia's table again, she smiled up at the mother and spoke, pointing out the window. Her expression bespoke inquiry, and the lady smiled back, nodded, and urged her to follow.

He assumed she had asked for directions. He was under no delusions. She kept the mother and child between her and a direct shot from him. She might not be able to see him, but she could sense him, and she kept the small family in the line of fire, until she disappeared in a crowd.

She turned up next in Vienna, keeping to the busy sections of the city and the tourist crowds. She never strayed off alone. His orders were to take her out quietly, anonymously. He kept her in his sights, watching and waiting for the right moment, even while hoping it would never come.

The last time he'd felt this conflicted over a mission, he had still been in the Army and the outcome had been something of a disaster, even if it eventually led to his recruitment to S.H.I.E.L.D.

In the end, he'd found that being able to live with himself had outweighed following orders. He was beginning to feel that way again. Damn his moral sense of right and wrong!

He began to sweat when she headed into a more deserted part of the city. Could she think she had lost him?

He remained out of sight on the rooftops, but that hadn't stopped her from sensing him before. He watched and waited, slithering along when necessary to stay out of sight while keeping her in his line of vision.

The crowds thinned, and he thought the time had come— that she'd made a fatal mistake, and he'd have to either take the shot or hand Fury his resignation.

But he underestimated her.

She knew Vienna better than he, and she'd led him through the streets, right into a trap.

She made a series of turns, and he had no choice but to make a jump across to a new roof to keep her in his sights, but she spun, spotted him, and then she just disappeared.

And now they were in Budapest, Hungary.

It was a beautiful city, at least the skyline he could see of it from his position laying on a dusty roof on the outskirts was a sight to behold, especially going on sunset. He turned his gaze back to the woman he was tailing.

"Target has stopped, Watchdog."

"Roger that. If you get a clear shot, take it. I'm ready to head home."

Clint withheld his sigh.

She didn't appear to have sensed him yet, but that didn't mean she didn't know he was there. He'd learned an important lesson in their chase across Europe, and he kept his direct gaze off her as much as he could, using small glances to mark her position and keeping as far back as he could and still manage to follow her.

She led him to what appeared to be a dead end. Only one way in or out with high stone walls leading to what appeared to be an ancient abandoned building that looked ready to collapse if given a strong enough wind.

She was tense and wary, darting looks over her shoulder. She didn't like the situation, he could tell. He didn't blame her. Too many things could go wrong in a place with only one exit.

And she wasn't at her best.

The circles under her eyes were darker than they'd been in Vienna. He'd bet she hadn't slept at all in days, and probably hadn't had a decent night's sleep in weeks. Her shoulders were slumped, and she looked nothing like the woman he'd seen in that video in Fury's office.

This woman was tired, paranoid and conflicted. She crouched by a pile of stones and Clint could see defeat in her eyes when her fingers came up empty.

That look bothered him. This woman was never meant to look defeated. There was so much more to her, behind the mask she wore, behind what the FSB had made her.

He wanted to find that woman, the one she hid deep down. He wanted to awaken her, release her from her internal prison and set her free to soar…

For over a week now, he'd watched her off and on, and over the course of his mission, he'd come to the conclusion that he'd been right. There was far more to Natalia Romanova than what he'd read in her file.

Oh, she was dangerous, elusive, and currently seemed to be rather unstable, judging by the wild look in her eyes. She kept reaching up to touch her temples, then lowering her hands and shaking her head slightly. There was something wrong with her, and if she kept going like this, she was going to end up dead.

Never mind that he was there to ensure just that.

But beyond the wild eyes, the exhaustion, the cold intensity of her gaze, Clint saw something else. He saw her longing for something more, her desire to be free. He saw potential for something so much greater, and even as he positioned himself behind a wall and unfolded his bow and strung it, he knew he couldn't do what the Council wanted him to do.

She deserved more than a quick death at his hands. She deserved what Phil had given him: a second chance.

He smirked. Fury had told him that he expected Clint to do the right thing. Well, that was almost license to do what he felt was right. Wasn't it?

He'd argue with the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. about it later.

Of course, Fury had also made it very clear that she was to be put to death.

It was all in how you looked at it though. Words could be used like weapons if you wielded them with enough skill.

If he could kill the woman the FSB had created, and in her place give S.H.I.E.L.D. an asset—

Well, it was a dangerous play on words, and he was putting his career on the line — a career that meant the world to him and had saved his life — but as much as his job with S.H.I.E.L.D. meant to him, he still had to live with himself. Killing this woman would mark his ledger with so much red he'd never be able to wipe it out. Not when he knew deep down that he could save her.

He had to try, consequences be damned.

"Watchdog, change in plans."

"I don't like the sound of that." Coulson's voice was resigned.

"Trust me on this. Going silent."

"Hawkeye, don't you dare turn your comm off."

Clint hesitated a fraction of a second, then clicked it off.

Compared to what he was about to do, turning off his comm couldn't possibly get him into more trouble. Phil would be frantic, worried, but there was nothing he could do about that.

He needed to be able to think without Phil talking in his ear. Besides, the less Coulson knew, the less the Council could blame him for what Clint was about to do.

He drew an arrow from his quiver and nocked it to the bowstring before peering down again at the woman below.

She still didn't seem to sense him. She had her back to one of the walls, peering at the crumbling building. He turned his attention to it as well, watching for moment, but there was nothing, only silence as the sun slipped lower on the horizon.

He moved into position.

_It is a trap._

That was all Natalia could think as she crouched by the wall, staring at the building just up the street. At her feet was a pile of loose stones. She was supposed to have received instructions from her contact _here_.

Her Makarov was a comforting weight in her hand, but this was all wrong. The instructions were not there, and she had the strongest sense of unease churning in her stomach along with the nausea induced by the constant headaches that plagued her.

And then she felt the tingling sensation of eyes burning into the back of her neck. Her blood ran cold, and she knew she was a dead woman.

There was nowhere to go. Only a few piles of stone to use as cover.

The building in front of her reeked of danger, though she could see no sign of movement behind the ancient broken windows. But she could feel the malevolence emanating from it. There was no refuge there.

She put her back to the wall and kept her eyes on the building, ignoring the threat above her. She could do nothing about her shadow. She was cornered and alone. He would make his shot, and she would die.

Part of her welcomed the end. It was a relief, a balm to her weary soul.

A deeper part of her screamed in denial that it could not end this way, that this was not the life she had been meant to have.

But that life had been stolen from her when she was but a child. She had never been given a choice to be anything other than what they had made her. And now she was tired and compromised in more ways than one.

She knew that she wasn't thinking clearly, that the headaches and sleep deprivation were affecting her cognitive processes. She could try to run back the way she had come, but she would die before she made the end of the wall-lined street.

She would rather face her fate head on as she had always done, the given outcome be damned.

Several minutes passed and nothing happened. She began to wonder if she had imagined that burning sensation. When would the bullet bite into her head?

She jumped when something hit the crumbling wall beside her. She ducked, then looked up, expecting to see a bullet hole in the wall.

Instead, Natalia blinked at an arrow, still wobbling from its flight. Then she slowly turned her head, following the path the arrow had taken until her eyes locked on _his._

_Bojemoi_! What kind of joke was this?

It was _him_. Robin Hood. Or rather, Hawkeye. Or should she think of him as Clinton Barton? Did it even matter? The irony was not lost on her. It was fitting, actually. If she was going to die, who better to do it?

So why was she still breathing?

He held her gaze, and it felt as if he was searching her very soul for answers to questions she did not know. All she could do was look back.

Her head pounded in her ears, and she closed her eyes briefly, then blinked them open to find him still looking back at her, his face void of expression.

He was probably kind of pissed about that whole file thing and his name. She would be, if the situation were reversed. Hell, if things were opposite, he would be a dead body on the ground at this point.

He reached back and methodically pulled another arrow from his quiver and nocked it…

Then she knew. He had wanted her to know. To have her look into his eyes as the life faded from hers. So be it. She would give him that.

He drew back the string, his thumb against his cheek, holding for three heartbeats, his eyes not leaving hers. But then his gaze shifted ever so slightly up and to her left.

He released.

The arrow flew towards her. It was as if everything slowed down, and she could see it in its flight: the slight upwards arc before it leveled out, the ruffling of the wind over the fletchings, the grappling hook tip…

_Grappling hook?_

The arrow slammed into the wall above where the last one had hit, a long thin line extending from it up to where the Hawk stood. She followed it with her eyes, stunned and uncertain as he hooked his bow to the line and slid down it, coming to a stop several feet in front of her.

He unhooked his bow, but did not draw another arrow. He just stood there, watching her. Waiting.

She did not have a clue what to think, so she stared back. Had he come to kill her or not? Should she ask? What the hell was going on?

In the face of a potential threat, no matter how odd the situation, her training kicked in, and she raised her gun, aiming it at his face.

He smirked.

_Smirked!_

"Are we really going to go there?" he asked, his voice rumbling in his chest.

_Of all the cocky, arrogant bastards!_

But it seemed rather unsporting to shoot him in the head when he did not have a weapon drawn. Why did he not have a weapon drawn?

Not to be deterred by such an oversight on his behalf, she attacked, but not with her gun. She dropped and kicked out at his legs in a move that would have taken out just about anyone.

The Hawk was not just anyone, she discovered.

As she kicked out, he simply flipped backwards, or perhaps folded backwards would be a better description, kicking his legs over his head and landing in nearly the same position as he had begun but several feet further from her.

She had never seen another man perform such a move before, and still crouched on the ground staring up at him, she raised a brow. "Gymnast?"

"Acrobat."

"Seriously?"

He shrugged. "I grew up in a circus."

"Seriously?"

"You ask that a lot. Do you really expect an answer?"

This time she shrugged, and flipped up into a handstand, pivoted and attempted to catch him with her legs around his neck.

But he moved quickly, far more quickly than the other S.H.I.E.L.D. agents she had gone up against when she had accessed that stupid file.

He turned, caught one of her legs with his hand and twisted, throwing her off balance. She dropped to her shoulders, swinging her other leg around him and reached out to punch him in the back of the knee. He grunted, and released her, allowing her to gain her feet.

They faced each other for a moment, sizing one another up, and then they both moved, trading blow for blow, or rather blocking blow for blow. Natalia was impressed. He was good. Very good. Not as good as she was, but she was not well, and it showed.

In less than five minutes he had her pinned against him, one arm around her neck, the other around her arms, pinning them to her body. This was where he would snap her neck. It was what she would do, if she were him.

But instead, he spoke, his voice rumbling by her ear and his breath blowing against her long red hair. "I'm going to let you go now, alright? Then we can talk?"

_Talk? He wanted to talk?_

The strangeness of the whole situation bordered on ridiculousness.

_Why not?_

She nodded, and he stepped back and did not even blink when she pointed her gun back at his face. It was a reaction. She had no intention of pulling the trigger.

"What is this? Have you come to kill me or not?"

He shrugged, looking almost sheepish. Boyish even, with a half smile turning up one side of his mouth.

"Well, I was sent to kill you, but I think that would be rather a waste, don't you? So how about I recruit you instead?"

She blinked. Twice. Slowly.

"Excuse me?"

"Why don't you lower your gun and we'll talk. You're making me a little nervous."

"If I wanted you dead, Barton, you'd have been dead in Amsterdam."

The boyish smile turned into a wolfish grin. _A grin!_ What was wrong with him? His eyes even did that twinkle thing she had read about in a romance novel once.

"So it _was_ my name you took from the list." His brows raised in curiosity. "Why?"

_Why?_ The hell if she knew. She just stared at him, keeping her pistol raised.

None of this made any sense. It felt surreal, and in the back of her mind she thought she ought to be remembering something important, but with that cocky grin, she could not remember what it was. Perhaps she was dying and this was all some sort of hallucination?

"Please?"

"Huh?" She frowned, staring at him in confusion.

"The gun. Can you please lower the gun so we can talk? I promise I won't hurt you."

As if he could.

But he had asked nicely, so she slowly lowered her pistol, keeping it at her side. "I do not understand."

He snorted. "Yeah, I'm not really understanding myself, and my handler is going to have my head for not obeying orders, but…"

He let out a long sigh and reached up to run a hand through his hair.

Her training did not react well to sudden movements. Her gun was back in his face, but this time her reaction sparked his own.

He mirrored the move so fast she did not see his hand move to his side arm, but suddenly there was a gun pointing back at her. They stared at one another a moment, then he smirked again.

"I'd really rather have this discussion without guns drawn, but if it makes you feel better, then I'm sure you'll understand if I play along."

She shook her head, staring at him in bemusement. "Why didn't you kill me?"

"Couldn't."

When she just stared at him, he shook his head, pressing his lips together in what she could only call an adorable expression. Was he a hardened assassin or a puppy dog?

"Why?" she asked.

Something changed in his expression, even as he shrugged again. All the arrogance and teasing fled and his demeanor became serious.

"Because there's more to you than what they made you. You want more than this life. I know you do. I saw it even in Amsterdam."

She snorted softly in derision. "Wanting doesn't make it happen. This is all I know. It's what I am."

He shook his head. "No, it's not. But you can use you skills for a much better purpose than lining your pockets, Natalia."

She inhaled sharply. When was the last time someone had used her real name? She was a number, or the Black Widow, or any number of aliases. She was only Natalia in her own mind, and in long buried memories of her life before the Red Room.

"No one calls me that. No one."

He inclined his head. "As you wish. What shall I call you then?"

Her mind produced a list of aliases, but she rejected them all. They were not her, and he had _seen_ her. Really seen her, and it felt wrong, to use an alias with _him_.

But she was not comfortable with anyone calling her Natalia. No one had, not since she had been a child. She was at a loss, confused by the bizarre situation, disoriented from the lack of sleep and the persistent headache and the faint niggling sense that she should be worried about something other than the strange S.H.I.E.L.D. agent asking her questions.

"How about Natasha?"

She blinked. "What?"

"My Russian isn't great, but I seem to recall that Natasha is a form of Natalia. Right?"

It was. And it felt…right.

She nodded. "Very well."

He smiled. Really smiled. Not the smirk or the grin but an honest to goodness smile that lit his face.

For a moment, Natalia wished things were different, that she was someone else, and that she could have the chance to get to know this man. To call him a friend. It would be nice to have had a friend before she died.

But reality was cruel and heartless. They were enemies on opposing sides, each pointing a gun at the other while having this bizarre conversation about her name. Was this even real? She should be dead by now. None of this made any sense.

"Alright, Natasha, so how about it?"

"How about what?"

"How about you put down your gun, and I put down my gun, and instead of killing each other, I take you out of this miserable existence and give you a better life." He seemed rather pleased with himself over that speech.

"No."

"No?" He looked rather surprised.

He really should not be. What did he expect? That he would slide down a line and sweep her off her feet and rescue her like some damsel in distress?

"What… How… You're insane."

"I know people who would agree with you on that. One in particular is probably cursing my name at the moment for my temporary insanity."

The man was baffling, in an adorable sort of way. She had never met anyone like him.

"I do not understand. Why are you doing this?"

He paused, his eyes leaving hers for the first time. It showed a level of trust. A trust she had not earned. A trust he should not by any means give. That one small gesture stirred something inside her.

He focused on the arrows in the wall beside her. "Five years ago, my future was bleak, my past staining everything. My ledger was dripping in blood, and I didn't know how to reconcile it. I was considered a threat." His gaze slid back to hers. "S.H.I.E.L.D. sent a man to take me out, but instead he saw something in me worth saving. He taught me that I couldn't erase the red, but I could balance the ledger."

He lowered his gun. "You're worth saving, Natasha."

She just stared. He was crazy. Completely insane. And damn him if his words did not stir hope in her chest. He was offering her what he had, what she had seen in him that first time: the freedom she had longed for, a choice, and something even more — a purpose?

That part of her that wanted to live screamed at her to take the leap, take what he offered.

She lowered her gun, uncertain of what to say. Finally she just shrugged. "It does not matter who I work for anyway. It might as well be for S.H.I.E.L.D."

He smiled, nodded, then reached up to his ear. "Watchdog? You still…"

He winced. "Yeah, yeah, I know, you're going to kick my ass. But listen…" He sighed and drummed his fingers on his leg. "Ass. Toast. I got it. You wanna listen yet?"

He looked at her and raised his brows, then shook his head. "I really pissed him off this time," he explained.

Natalia wondered if she would ever stop staring at the man. Everything about him confused the hell out of her. He was cocky, arrogant, and she was certain he was a complete ass.

He was also charming and she was pretty sure she liked him. And he had managed to do what no other shadow had ever done: he had caught her. He had even bested her in hand-to-hand combat, though she blamed herself more than his skill for that. She really did not feel very well.

And he had trusted her. Trusted her not to kill him, first when he had slid down that line, and again when she had pointed her gun at him and he had just stood there. And finally, when he had pulled his eyes from hers…

She stood listening as he argued with whoever was on the other end of his mic and wondered what the hell she was getting herself into, while at the same time not really caring.

"My recommendation is recruitment, Watchdog. Requesting immediate extraction. I'm bringing company home for dinner." He winked at her.

Somehow she did not think his superiors would find that funny. But _she_ did. She smiled back. The first real smile that had stretched her lips in a very long time.

He saw it and grinned back, his piercing blue-grey eyes meeting hers.

Then all hell broke loose.

He lunged forward, taking her to the ground, and she thought it had all been an elaborate hoax, until the bullets started pinging against the wall.

Only then did she remember the abandoned building and the malevolence she had felt from it earlier.

The trap had been sprung.

_Ass. Toast. Definitely. Bojemoi!_

_**To Be Continued…** _

_**Thanks for reading! And much thanks to everyone who has taken the time to leave a review! Keep them coming please! They are motivational!** _


	6. Five

**Five**

“Are those shots I’m hearing?” Coulson’s voice came over his comm. 

“No, they’re firecrackers!” Clint barked as he rolled off of Natasha. 

She glanced at him as if he were crazy, then registered to whom he was speaking and proceeded to snort with amusement. Clint shook his head and took a quick assessment of the situation. 

He didn’t like what he concluded. She had rolled into a crouch behind a nearby pile of rock, her face an expressionless mask of calm despite the fact that they were trapped against a wall with an indeterminate number of enemies firing from the abandoned building and all they had for cover was some scattered rubble and rocks from upper sections of the wall that had fallen over the course of time. 

_Idiot._

She had been wary of the situation, but he had been too focused on her. This was a damn rookie mistake! If he got out of this alive, Coulson would never let him live it down. 

“Did she shoot you?” 

Amazing. Even in the middle of a fire fight, Coulson sounded bored and unconcerned. 

Clint knew the opposite was true. Phil would be worried and frantic, but he’d never show it. The man would keep up a running dialogue of dry banter, the norm when Clint found himself in these situations. There had been quite a few over the past few years, so he shouldn’t be surprised to find himself in another. 

This time the situation was a bit different, however. He looked over at the woman who had brought him here. This time he had walked into it of his own accord. 

Natasha had leveled her gun and was taking calculated shots at the building. He turned his focus from her to what she was shooting at and began looking for targets himself. 

“You’d probably be happy if she had, Watchdog. Save you a lot of paperwork and trouble.” 

And fuck, he was in a lot of trouble. Even if he got out of this mess alive and with Natasha in tow, he had a lot of explaining to do to Coulson and Fury. And there was no telling how the Council would react. 

Who was he kidding? The Council would be pissed as hell and probably demand his head on a platter, or at least his resignation and his butt back in a prison cell. He really didn’t want to go back to that, but what else could he have done? Killed her? 

He glanced back at the fiery woman. Natasha fired at the building. There wasn’t a lot of room for maneuvering, and he could see that her body still trembled with whatever illness beset her, but her aim was dead on. He watched as two men fell out of windows. 

He eyed the empty windows, waiting for some sign of movement and wishing for his bow. He had dropped it when Natasha had attacked him and he’d had to flip over to avoid her. He could see it on the other side of the rubble, in an open spot with no cover. Damn it! If he had his bow, he could end whatever this was before it got ugly. 

_Guess it’s just going to get ugly, then._

Coulson’s voice came over his comm again. “It’s not me I’m worried about, Hawk. What’s the situation?” 

For Phil to admit that he was worried was in and of itself rather amazing, even if there was no trace of that emotion in the man’s tone. 

“I never knew you cared so much, Watchdog. Unknown assailants, unknown numbers. They’ve got us pretty nailed down here.” 

He held his fire, refusing to waste his limited ammo until he had a clear shot. At this range, his pistol wouldn’t have the accuracy he was used to, but since it was all he had… 

_There. Movement in the far right window._

He took aim and fired and the shots coming from that window ceased abruptly as a body slumped over. 

“Nice shot.” 

He darted a glance at Natasha then focused back on the building. “Thanks. I’d be better with my bow though.” 

“Shouldn’t have dropped it, then.” 

Really, she was almost as good as Coulson. 

Clint smiled as he realized that his instincts had been spot on. She would be brilliant to work with. He just hoped they would live long enough to get the chance. 

He leaned around a boulder and fired again. “You think?” 

She laughed — bright and free — and something in his chest puffed out that he had been the cause of that sound. He was certain she rarely laughed, at least, not for real. He found even amidst the insanity of a firefight that he wanted to hear that sound again. 

“I could cover you if you want to make a grab for it?” she asked, popping off another couple rounds. 

“Or she could just shoot you herself,” Coulson added in his ear, eavesdropping, as per usual. 

“And what stops you from shooting me yourself?” he had to ask the question. He knew in his gut that she wouldn’t, but he found it irresistible to tease her. And he was curious how she would respond. 

“Nothing,” was her deadpan reply. She flipped a lock of red hair out of her face and over her shoulder. “Except they seem to want us both dead and the enemy of my enemy…” She gestured in the air with her gun. “You know the saying?” 

He did. “The enemy of my enemy is my friend. Cover me.” 

She drew another gun from a holster on her thigh and began laying down cover fire, but just as he shifted into position to roll out and make a grab for his bow, movement caught his eye from back up the alley, the way Natasha had come. 

They were boxed in. 

“They’re on your right too!” he shouted, abandoning any thoughts of grabbing his favorite weapon. 

“ _Bojemoi_!” 

It was the first time since the bullets started soaring past them that Clint heard emotion in her voice. 

Unless one counted her laughter. He’d rather her laughter than the frustrated panic he heard in her expletive. 

“No kidding.” 

He angled himself to allow for clear shots at the new threat, putting him nearly back to back with Natasha. He needed a plan. This wouldn’t last long if he couldn’t find a way out of this dead end. 

“Where is your extraction team?” 

Good question! The quinjet would be excellent back up in this situation, if only it were close enough to fly in before they were taken or shot. 

“Watchdog?” 

“I hear you, Hawkeye. Situation?” 

Clint could hear the distraction in Phil’s voice. It just meant his handler was juggling communications, probably in an effort to get them some air support. 

“We’re under fire by unknown hostiles, boxed in with nowhere to go and a limited amount of ammo and cover here.” He paused to squeeze off a couple shots, a smirk tilting his lips when both bullets found a mark. “My bow is out of reach or I’d have ended it already. You got an estimate time on extraction? We really could use some back up here.” 

“I wasn’t planning on this kind of extraction, Hawk!” That tone wasn’t a good sign. It meant they wouldn’t be seeing the quinjet in the next few minutes. “We left our team in Germany, or did you forget?” 

Of course he hadn’t forgotten. But he had hoped that Coulson would have sent for them as soon as he had mentioned a change in plans. If he hadn’t, then they were screwed. “Get ‘em here ASAP.” 

“Already in route. ETA in…” 

Clint didn’t hear the rest. Coulson’s voice was muffled as the number of shots suddenly increased, ringing out from several windows of the building. He glanced over his shoulder and saw the men in fatigues darting out the sides of the building to take up strategic positions, moving closer to where the two of them crouched. The enemy had the advantage when it came to cover. Clint couldn’t get a clear shot. 

He focused back on the men in the alley. They were taking their cue from the other group and were moving in closer as well, despite Clint’s firing at them with his glock and taking out two more as they moved from one pile of rubble to another. He didn’t like the way they were inching forward, but allowing them to come closer would give him the opportunity to use one of his lesser known skills. 

It wasn’t the greatest plan, but it was a plan at least. The attackers didn’t appear to be trying to kill them, but were moving in to take them alive. That was worrisome, but he could take out a good portion of them if they came within throwing range. 

A sudden pain in his right thigh drew a grunt from him. Perhaps they wanted _her_ alive. He appeared to be a target, though he could tell from experience that it was little more than a flesh wound. The bullet had only grazed him. 

Natasha glanced at him, took note of the growing wet patch on his pants and seemed to determine he would live, all in the split second before she returned to firing at the advancing men. 

Clint noticed that very few of her bullets bit into dirt or stone instead of flesh. 

The approaching men were getting closer and with the sun having sunk below the horizon, twilight was upon them, and they were situated at a huge disadvantage. 

Then, as abruptly as it had begun, the firing ceased and a voice called out in crisp Russian. Clint’s grasp of the language wasn’t great, but he understood enough to interpret the words in his head 

“Give it up, Black Widow. We do not wish _you_ any harm. You are ill. Let us help you.” 

Clint glanced back at Natasha. Her face seemed to have drained of all color. In the misty light she looked pale, beautiful and deadly. She didn’t answer, not with words. Instead she took aim in the direction of the voice, and for the first time that evening, she didn’t appear ill. Instead, a calm determination settled over her as she let her gun do the talking.   
  


The Russians returned fire, and Clint lifted his gun to fire back. But they were greatly outnumbered and running out of time, and very soon, ammo. He hadn’t come armed for a firefight, but for an assassination. 

The disturbing truth of the situation was that if Phil couldn’t get the quinjet here quickly, there would be no escape for him. He was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent sent to take out a Russian operative. Denying it would accomplish nothing. The Russians would not believe him, and they certainly wouldn’t appreciate losing a spy like the Black Widow, be it to death or defection. He was certain they had lured her here in order to take her back, and based on what he’d read, to reprogram her through the use of psychological drugs, hypnosis and various other questionable forms of manipulating the psyche. 

His death would be an added bonus, relieving S.H.I.E.L.D. of one of its most valuable assassins. 

He kept an eye on both groups, but kept his gun trained on the smaller group advancing up the alley. Without backup, he couldn’t see any way out of this mess. But he’d learned long ago that being unable to see a way out didn’t necessarily mean one didn’t exist. He just hadn’t discovered it yet. So, he let his eyes wander the ever darkening street, seeking a path that had eluded his first glances. 

And his distraction cost him as another burst of pain exploded in his right bicep. “Fuck!” 

“Will you stop getting shot!” Her voice was laced with exasperation. 

Clint rolled his eyes at her. He didn’t think the wound was that bad, but he was losing blood from two places now, and it was definitely going to make getting out of this mess more difficult. At least it wasn’t his throwing arm. 

“You think I’m enjoying this?” 

“Some assassin you are. Ow!” She gripped her left shoulder. 

He grinned as he watched a streak of red trickle over her fingers. “You’re one to talk.” 

“Shut up, Barton.” 

Coulson’s voice broke into the fray. “I think I like her, Hawk. We should keep her.” 

“I already told you that. ETA on extraction?” 

“Twenty-five minutes.” 

“We won’t live that long, Watchdog.” Clint took a closer look at the wall behind them. There, not ten feet from where they crouched was a crack running through the stone. “I have a plan.” 

“Will it get you out of there alive?” Coulson would accept nothing less. 

“Possibly. We’ll find out.” He continued to eye the crack, making mental calculations. 

“Hawk…” 

“Stand by, you old dog.” Clint was in no mood to hear Coulson have a sudden bout of emotionalism. 

“Roger that.” 

Wedging himself between enough rubble to provide some sort of cover from at least two sides, he removed his quiver, grimacing at the pain the movement induced. He knew both burning pains were little more than flesh wounds, but they hurt like hell. Probably needed stitches. He hated stitches. Maybe he could convince Doc to use that surgical glue, though that stuff burned like hell, too. 

_Focus, Barton!_ he reminded himself, drawing an arrow from his quiver. 

“What are you doing?” Natasha’s voice came to him over the sounds of the ongoing gunfire. 

“I have a plan,” he told her, removing an explosive tip from the arrow and fiddling with the firing mechanism. Usually it was triggered by impact or a signal from his bow, but being as he couldn’t reach the latter and he couldn’t throw it hard enough to cause detonation, he had to fall back to turning it into a basic hand grenade. Thankfully, with his skill in marksmanship extending to throwing projectiles, he had taken that into consideration when designing the tips. Remove a small pin, and he had a few seconds before detonation. 

“Ever played the game Hot Potato?” he asked, removing another tip. 

“My childhood was not exactly filled with games,” she retorted through gritted teeth as she knelt behind the rubble and fired at anything that moved. "At least not the kind of games you would have played." Her sleeve was now coated in blood. She was wounded worse than she let on. 

“You heard of it or not?” He prepared a third for throwing. 

“No.” 

“Too bad.” 

He took assessment of where both groups of men were, used his teeth to pull the pin from one tip, then threw it. The second followed, aimed at the opposite group, before the first landed. The third he tossed towards the weakness in the wall even as he reached out and grabbed Natasha and pulled her down behind the rubble. 

“What are you doing?” she yelled as he tumbled her to the ground. 

“Playing Hot Potato,” he retorted, as three explosions detonated within seconds of each other. 

Natasha grimaced. Men screamed out and all became utter confusion. Smoke and dust filled the air as a section of the wall crumbled, leaving a hole large enough for the two of them to scramble through. 

Natasha saw it and didn’t wait for him to tell her what to do. She lunged for it. 

_Smart girl._

Clint used the momentary confusion and limited visibility from the smoke to make a grab for his bow, then ignoring the pain in his leg, he darted with his weapon and his quiver through the dust and debris of the crumbled wall. 

Just as he made it through to the other side, another section of the wall gave way above him. He attempted to leap out of the way, but a sharp pain lanced through his head and everything went dark. 

Natalia had no time to consider how her new comrade in arms had given them the means to escape from a bad situation. She just went with it, darting through the hole in the wall, then glancing about for an escape route. 

She was familiar with this part of the old city, but had to get her bearings. A street ran off to her left, angling away from the crumbling wall. It would lead them in as good a direction as any and would provide plenty of places to take cover. 

Behind her came the sound of crumbling stone. She whirled just in time to see Barton had made it through the gap only to have to dive from more of the falling wall. As luck would have it, a large rock caught him in the side of the head, and he went limp. 

_Is there anything else that could possibly go wrong today?_

She regretted that question as soon as she asked it, because she knew from experience that the answer was most assuredly, “yes”. 

There was no point in wasting time fretting over the unfairness of the situation. Instead, she scrambled to Barton’s side and checked his vital signs. He was still breathing, and his pulse was strong enough, but he was unconscious and bleeding from a gash on his scalp, as well as the two wounds he had taken to the arm and leg. 

Her own injury throbbed, but she could block it out. 

Getting Barton up the street would be difficult, but not impossible. But she would not be able to drag him far or fast enough to escape the Russian troops shouting on the other side of the wall. There was very little time before the air cleared enough for them to realize what had happened and where their targets had gone. 

Faced with the choice of both of them being caught — and Barton most likely being killed while she was taken back to Russia — or the chance that one of them might escape, she chose the latter, even if it meant sacrificing herself. 

There was a first time for everything, right? 

Besides, if anyone deserved to live, it was him. He had choices. He did what was right. She was dead anyway. 

Ignoring the pain in her arm, she hefted Barton by lifting under his arms and began dragging him to a place not far up the street. She just needed to get him hidden where the Russians could not find him, and trust that Barton’s Watchdog would be able to locate him. The comm unit in his ear should have a tracking device as well. He would be found by S.H.I.E.L.D. and they could get him the medical help he needed. 

Whereas she… 

Natalia — _No! Not Natalia. NATASHA! —_ shoved aside any other thoughts as she dragged the unconscious man as quickly as she could up the street. She could not afford to consider what would happen to her. It did not matter. She could only hope that once she forgot everything, once her handlers reprogrammed her, that S.H.I.E.L.D. would find a way to eliminate her. It would be for the best all around. 

Chances were slim that Barton’s offer would be backed up by his superiors. At best she would be a lab rat and a source of intel. Worst case, she would be dead. 

_But at least you would be free._

No time to think about that. She had to keep moving. It was not far now. 

The best place to hide Barton would be an old warehouse. Plenty of places to hide him in there. Her arm burned with the exertion of dragging him, but she ignored the desire to stop and rest. 

Ten more feet. 

Five more feet. 

She kicked in a door and drug Barton through it, noting that even in his unconscious state, he had a death grip on that bow of his. When had he grabbed that? His quiver strap was threaded through the arm holding the bow. Amazing. The man had an uncanny dedication to his weapons. 

She wondered what had led him to become so proficient with the tools, but knew that she would never get the chance to ask. There was so much that intrigued her about this man. Just something about his manner that drew her to him, like a moth to a flame. 

He was dangerous. Better for it to end without ever discovering the answers to her questions. Without ever having a friend. 

She pushed the door shut, then maneuvered Barton to the far side of the room. It was dark but she dare not risk any light. The Russian unit would waste no time following her. She needed to get out of here and lead them away from her fallen ally. 

But first, she leaned down near his ear. 

“Watchdog, I do not know if you can hear me or not, but Hawkeye is down: gunshot wound to the right shoulder, right thigh, and head injury, unconscious but alive and safe for the moment in a warehouse next street over. The men attacking us are Russian. I will lead them from this place so he will not be discovered. Tell him…” 

She paused, wondering what to say. Really there was only one thing. “Tell him I said thank you and I am sorry.” 

Natasha did not attempt to remove the comm or hear anything Watchdog said. She lurched to her feet and slipped out the door and began the task of attempting to escape while luring the Russians as far from Barton as possible. 

She knew she would not succeed in the escaping part. The last weeks had taken their toll and whatever was wrong with her was getting worse. Her head ached fiercely and she felt she would vomit. Still, she stumbled down the street, determined to make her capture as difficult as possible. 

She glanced back only once, and felt an odd emotion: regret. 

**To Be Continued…**


End file.
